


we came in pairs

by bountifulsilences



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Character Study, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, suicide ideation, that 1 minute endgame trailer, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 08:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17659685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountifulsilences/pseuds/bountifulsilences
Summary: “We came in pairs.Our souls were destined for each other.But no one can escape death.”





	we came in pairs

**Author's Note:**

> so we all need therapy after that trailer and this is what happens when marvel won't pay the fees
> 
> I just...steve :(((
> 
> also, I've incorporated writing from my post-iw fic that I deleted from here because I really like the writing so if you've read I am sorry oops. but this is a new piece of writing in itself
> 
> please heed the warnings as this does discuss some sensitive things !!!
> 
> all mistakes are my own bc I suck and I hope you enjoy this !! :)

_“I made a vow.”_

Stupidly, yes, Steve thought, he did make a vow. His last vow in fact, never again would he foolishly impose himself onto anyone, let alone a beloved whose demise was planned by very own hands.

A vow is sacred. The ultimate form of trust. He was trusted. Someone looked at him at the young age of six and considered his flaws; his ailments and his temperament, the unending trepidation that burdened his shoulders and the abnormalities; but still wanted him. Decided that even though he was ruined goods he was worth the time and the effort required to keep the machine going for as long as possible.

It wasn’t the first time he had failed a person in his life, ultimately wouldn’t be the last, but to fail them four consecutive times was a record Steve didn’t think anyone could beat. The mere fact Bucky always returned to him (willingly?) showed that Hydra couldn’t damage a man who was unbreakable.

But he died. Heart-breaking, harrowing and so unexpected that the outcome of the snap should have had him sprawled on the dirt in fragments of ash, not them. He should have been the one to feel his soul wither, pieces of his essence splinter like glass shattering after a catastrophic collision.

Death fooled him like the trickster it was and took something far more valuable than his life- oh, it took the person whose name Steve’s heart breathed in every beat. It took a man who saw Steve’s crumbling facade and gave him a new home. It took the lives of those who couldn’t do anything to stop it. He endured the scorching pressure of blinking cameras, of the gaping hollow chest, the crash into the Arctic that didn’t promise vengeance like it should have. But the deaths coating his fingertips were the worst things that ever happened to him.

Steve’s love for Bucky was the most certain thing to exist in the universe. The earth halting in its orbit was far more likely than the love he harboured for Bucky diminishing. And yet, what good did that love do?

Falling into the alps, screaming into the abyss of a mouth guard, imploding into ash and sweeping the forest floor. Love was nothing but an emotion, not a lifeline. The body’s decomposing above soil and on the streets shouted as such.

There was a man. A man who-

_"We were- we were dri-ving through the state,” he explained, breath hitching and words sharper than a spear. “She wanted to see the- the- the ocean. I-  I fucking- I can’t do this. My throat hurts. My body fucking hurts. They're gone. They left me.” He sobbed, loud and unrestrained, the cry of his whimpering soul finally releasing after months of being contained._

_The room was silent._

_“I want them back!” he yelled- screamed, hands clenching his hair in fists and pulling harshly. “They- I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this. Why didn’t he take me- I can’t breathe without them here why don’t you understand?”_

Whispers in the shadows, murmurs from the sky. A blanket of desolation hung over them. There was nothing.

But there was a woman. A woman who-

_“We came in pairs.”_

_She wore a headscarf, hair concealed from view in impeccable fashion. Her eyes were vacant. No one blinked._

_“Our souls were destined for each other.”_

_She looked at Steve, eye’s connecting and exposing the pain their lives held._

_“But no one can escape death.”_

A promise. That’s what it was. Despite the journey they embark, the destination will always be the same. No one could unwrite what was written. Flesh and stone, blood and water, high and low, what was decreed came. Destiny arrived.

It arrived and it tore them in half. Separated them from their life.

He could vividly recall the exact moment Bucky beckoned him, uttering a weak, “Steve?” and him, oblivious the confusion and the weariness swiftly turned to investigate, dismayed when he saw limbs crack into ash and flutter to the ground.

Paralysed, he helplessly watched as Bucky looked at him and then his arm and then him again, unable to react before the wind blew him away and the remnants of his existence became a fragile powder and his last intention was sprawled on the ground as his gun.

The thing was, he had tried. Once the freeze had thawed and his limbs warmed, Steve was about to launch himself into a sprint and run to the deteriorating body, hands prepared to catch him this time because he _never_ catches him when he falls, and it can't happen _again_.

His objective was clear, the path mangled with death and dust and decomposition and- _oh my God, I’m so sorry, Bucky. I’m so sorry._ But he never got there and didn’t catch him before he tripped, eyes never parting Steve's. The breath was knocked out of his chest and he stared at the cinders of life flutter to the ground, now fragments of death.

He wanted to scream seeing Bucky's ashes, wanted to blindly raise his shield to rain down bullets on the purple skin of a malevolent devil who was just as real as him, not a fabrication like he wished. But the fact he had seen Bucky decompose into embers stunted him and he just couldn't _breathe_. The smell of death suffocated his nose and he absently noted that this was occurring to nearly everyone, but he couldn't tear his eyes from the garbled flakes resting on the ground.

Stiffly, he had trudged to the site and crumpled onto his knees, ignoring the pain that amplified at his carelessness. Tentatively he had touched the remains of his lifelong love, feeling and seeing evidence of an actual death and stared at it as the pigment transitioned to grey on his skin.

Thanos had merely clicked his fingers before vanishing quicker than he had arrived. All it took was a snap. Thor was slumped in his stance as he watched Steve, and he knew he should have said something, but he couldn't. Because that grey, rough texture on his fingertips was Bucky and he was gone, he was officially dead, he saw it happen.

Steve saw great despair during the depression. Poverty rocketed through the roof. Bodies littered the street like trash the government was unwilling to clean, big businessmen handled small fruit stalls, walking up and down the streets in rags, riches taken from them by banks. And prosperity plummeted, the only people who could sustain the crash were Unstoppables.

So, in 1929, Steve wasn't accustomed, per say, but rather expectant of seeing the odd corpse decorating the road, or even a self-hung white man, subjecting himself to the fate that many African Americans feared. The Wall Street crash induced the demise of thousands.

But to live the horrors of the past once more with no possibility of Bucky curling around Steve’s back pressing every inch of himself against Steve’s skin, as though he was trying to dissolve into him, and whispering gently, "I love you Stevie." He couldn’t do it.

There was no more tension dispensing through open wounds, where Steve would sigh, depression fleeing for a moment, and he'd reply truthfully, "I love you too Bucky." Because he truly did, with all his heart.

An "I love you" isn't enough to tame the ugliness of death, Steve knew that. Because life was unfair, stressful and unjust, everyone needed their own escape. Steve had fought bullies he knew could kill him. Bucky worked himself to the point he thought he'd snap. It was ruthless, risky and dangerous.

They did not love their bleak lives, fought viciously with themselves every day to cling onto the stray lines of life, and the only reason they never wrapped a noose around their own necks, was for the other. Who would care for Steve if Bucky died? Who would care for Bucky if Steve died?

But now that it was set on stone that Bucky was dead, Steve could vouch for it as there was a jar containing the fragments of his demise, he wondered: who did he live for? What prevented him from tying the rope or shooting the bullet?

So much death and so many deceased and it all felt like his fault. How could he sleep when he heard Bucky call him every moment he closed his eyes, a painful and innocent, “Steve?” that demanded he respond.

He didn't the first time, consumed with disbelief, but he would the next if he ever could. And if that meant answering to hallucinations then be it, anything to sate the ire and hate burning him inside.

Allowing the death of a loved one to stain his fingertips with dust darker than charcoal and thinner than paint, watching in horror as the body fell and disintegrated before he could even react- how could he not?

To have a beloved that survived the decimation was comfort that not even Thanos could eradicate. A reckless and stupid companion, with a certain and definite, "I love you," to get them through the damn day.

Steve wished he knew what that felt like.

Lovers were two halves of the same soul. They were the bayou when torrential waves of despair grabbed a hold and squeezed. They were a reason to continue.

Love was an emotion, not a lifeline. But it was a tremendous motivator to survive so it might as well have been.

And without any motivation to rise from bed, walk out onto the grass and breath in the polluted air, Steve was finding it harder to continue the life he was living. There was no “I love you” to get him through the damn day and there never would be. Destiny had arrived.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr:  bountifulsilences   
> twitter:  AwestruckBuck 


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